


Hiraeth

by Heavensbee



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4864937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heavensbee/pseuds/Heavensbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HIRAETH - (n) a homesickness for a home you can't return to, or that never was.</p><p>(MUSIC AU • RIVETRA) When Levi gets an invitation to attend the prestigious Saint Maria's University of Professional Arts, he contemplates on giving the tall, blond man the finger. However, things start spiralling down quickly in his life and he is left with no other choice but to go. He is annoyed by the eccentric artists walking around campus, but when he meets a particular redhead and actually starts helping people out on a regular basis - he realises things might not be so bad after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letsrunaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsrunaway/gifts).



> First of all, I'd like to apologize for any mistakes you might find. English is not my native language. (: Also, this was inspired by a conversation I had with letsrunaway on Shamchat where she posed as Levi while I was Petra. It gave me feels. I'm planning on writing out the actual conversation as a oneshot, but it'll be set in the actual Attack on Titan universe. This is a fanfiction of which I have no idea where it'll be going, but I was inspired and when inspiration strikes, ya just gotta write, man. (;

They say you should follow your dreams. What a retarded remark; try to figure out what your subconscious is trying to tell you and figure out the meaning of life. Try to live a better life. Or something like that.  
Most important are those that seem to be carved into your memory; that one recurring dream that keeps giving you a headache. Not a scary nightmare that makes you wake up, bathing in your own sweat – your mother standing at the end of your bed because you screamed her awake. Not that kind of recurring dreams. The kind of dream you want to live – or at least, visit, over and over again.

Levi only had one recurring dream and it sucked ass. True, he wanted to keep dreaming about it; but only so he could figure the heck out what it meant. Because it wasn’t exactly a dream – or a nightmare, for that matter. It felt like a memory that had never before happened, but it caused Levi so much grief he often started doubting that fact.

Levi could never grasp the details and hold onto them. He couldn’t remember one shade of hair colour, could not remember faces – let alone voices. They say that’s what you start forgetting first about a person; what they sound like. The way he remembered this particular dream, was all blurred. It felt like trying to stream a movie which highest quality option was 144p.

However, there was _one_ detail that was carved into his retina. It had nested inside his mind and he could not let go of it. A woman wearing a green cape. He didn’t know what colour her hair was – or her eyes – what expression she wore, even though he could clearly recall staring her right in the face from high above. And cursing himself.

For not having been there in time.

The woman’s back was arched almost gracefully, her spine without a doubt crushed to bits. Her chest hugged the oak tree she had crashed into and blood was dripping down her neck.

Levi couldn’t remember another life where she used to always wear a smile and he couldn’t remember only her being able to make him do so. To make him smile. He couldn’t remember her being an inch shorter than his mere 5’3” – probably making her the only person he could ever surpass. He couldn’t remember her sun kissed, bewildered hair or her amber eyes, and he could not remember her name was Petra Ral.  
Levi stared. And kept on staring. She was the only one he was able to see. Something told him he ought to look at the other three bodies around her, but he couldn’t. He only had eyes for her broken, maimed corpse. He stared, but he couldn’t look. He couldn’t look with his heart, for it seemed to have been replaced by a gaping, empty hole.

He felt an aching grief wash over him. One that took his breath away, and he realised that this death was his fault. Because he hadn’t been there in time.


	2. On a lovely Saturday.

Levi’s eyes flew open and with the harsh sunlight shining down on him from the curtain-less window, he immediately squinted in an attempt to shield himself from blindness. He glanced at the clock that stood next to him. It was seven in the morning. Now, Levi wasn’t exactly your typical Sleeping Beauty, but he did want to catch up on energy in weekends and seven A.M. was not a pleasant time to be woken up on a Saturday. Especially on a Saturday. Why the Hell was he already awake? It was only when he heard Isabel screaming his name again he realised she couldn’t ever keep her mouth shut.

Farlan and Levi – it being mostly Farlan’s idea, of course – had taken the sixteen year old girl in only weeks ago and Levi had known right away that it had been an awful mistake. For God’s sake, it sounded like she was having a nervous breakdown. Levi pushed the dream he’d just had again to the back of his brain and forgot all about it only minutes later.

“What the fuck, Isabel,” he groaned while sitting on the edge of his bed. He rubbed his eyes and groped his bed to find a shirt he could put on.

“LEVI FOR FUCK’S SAKE WHY WON’T YOU COME KILL THE BASTARD?!” Levi frowned deeply. What the Hell was she talking about? He narrowed his eyes and cursed under his breath. _It’s a Saturday morning_. He dragged himself out of bed and it took great effort for his legs to carry his body over to Isabel’s room, a murderous expression visible on his face. Not that Isabel would care to notice. There was a giant spider sitting on the ceiling of the tiny room – which was well out of Levi’s reach. Cracks were forming where the lamp hung and it probably wouldn’t last long before the whole thing came crashing down. He was careful to step around it in case it decided to fall on top of him. The girl was holding the cat she’d taken from the street earlier this week. Levi hated cats, but Isabel loved animals. It was ironic how deadly terrified she was of spiders, since she always talked about how fascinating bugs were.

“Isabel, why the fuck do you expect me trying to get up there to catch a fucking spider?” Levi asked grimly, running a hand through his hair.

“Just get rid of it, okay?” _She’s just a sixteen year-old girl. She’s seen nothing of the world yet. She’s a simple sixteen year-old. She can’t help being a retarded little piece of crap._ He didn’t necessarily want to kill the girl for calling him this early. He’d rather want to kill her because it had been like this for a month, but since Farlan was awfully fond of her, he probably wouldn’t get away with it – and to be completely honest, her company wasn’t always that bad.

He stared at the ceiling, his nose crinkled with disgust at the filthy creature. He wasn’t scared of bugs – or spiders, they were just plainly disgusting. Levi shot her another look that spoke murder – how highly he didn’t appreciate this – and grabbed a chair. He climbed on top of it and reached for the tin can Isabel used to store all her pens and pencils, threw its contents on her bureau and grabbed a piece of paper she’d used to draw a stupid face on. He grit his teeth, feeling heath of embarrassment rising up in his neck. He was barely able to reach the ceiling and he hated having to stretch out to get taller, even if it was only standing on the tips of his toes.

Levi carefully placed the tin can over the spider and slid the piece of paper underneath, then cautiously getting off the chair and opening a window to set it free. He ignored Isabels protest that he should just kill it instead of being merciful and giving the damn creature back its freedom, since blood on the wall wasn’t something Levi particularly enjoyed scrubbing off. Isabel would _always_ call out to him to come and help her, only to be stubborn and argue about his methods. It drove him crazy.

The apartment was way too tiny to actually be able to house three people, but they were lucky nonetheless. Levi hated the filthy place. He’d tried and tried, as hard as he could, but the kitchen cabinet still kept on gathering dust and the mould on the windowsill in the bathroom had been there since he and Farlan moved in three years ago. But they didn’t have enough money to afford anything else. They gathered money in ways that were conventional but illegal. They had the luck of Levi owning a violin, so that he could illegally play in the streets of Trost. If he was lucky – threatening and uninviting as he seemed, or was, for that matter – he earned little over fifty dollars a day. Farlan and Isabel took care of pick pocketing everyone that was and was not watching him play. Unfortunately, a police officer had caught them doing it last week and things had spiralled downhill fast. They were extremely limited now, knowing they had eyes on them.

They would’ve been fine, really, if it hadn’t been for Nicholas Lobov, the owner of the apartment block they lived in. The less they gathered, the more he took – only caring for himself and wanting to grant everyone else a shitty life. This perfectly well meant Levi and Farlan knew what hunger felt like. Nicholas Lobov knew nothing about Isabel yet and the two young men decided they wanted to keep it that way.

Levi thought this whole crap life he was situated in, was a perfectly good reason to say no when a blond, tall man complimented him on his musical talents and offered to pay tuition if he applied for Saint Maria’s University of Professional Arts. It would've been a hilarious joke for rich people, really, but Levi couldn’t sense any sarcasm in the man’s voice.

Now, it couldn’t be denied that he was a talented violinist, but people didn’t usually go around throwing with the fortune you’d have to pay if you were planning on attending Saint Maria’s – and boy, a fortune it was. The man had left his business card in the violin case, proving Levi’s point that he hadn’t been sarcastic at all. Even though he’d been perfectly sure that he’d made up his mind, five minutes ago, Levi found himself staring at the flashing green card, faltering the piece he was working on. He tried to concentrate again, picked up where things had started going wrong, but he missed again and screwed up. He got annoyed and gave a frustrated grunt when a passer-by looked up in horror to the sound of something that highly resembled a dying cat.

It started to rain. Not wanting to ruin his instrument, Levi decided he was done for today – his earn being nearly non-existent. He got out his phone – an ancient Nokia from three centuries ago – and texted Farlan – wherever he was hanging out with Isabel – he’d be heading back home.

•••

As Levi walked down the streets of the Trost District, the slight drops of rain turned into a true tempest. He pulled his hood over his head and walked as close to the buildings at the side of the pavement as he could. His hands dug deep into the pockets of the green jacket he was wearing and he could barely even hear his own footsteps in the abandoned alleyway as thunder struck above him. _It’s a fucking Saturday_.

Each Saturday evening, precisely nine o’clock, Nicholas Lobov made his entrance in the building. He would arrive at their door at two past nine and not one second later. Sometimes he was early, and that never meant anything good. Levi glanced at his watch, which was probably the most expensive object he owned. He had contemplated on selling the item, but it was useful and – he hated to admit – had sentimental value.

His fingers played with the little amount of coins he had stored in his pocket. His phone buzzed. He figured it was Farlan, but Levi was already soaked and he did not feel the need to electrocute himself and making his phone crash – even though he was absolutely sure his Nokia could survive a nuclear war. It probably had already, looking at its state. When Levi reached his block, lightning illuminating the street he lived in, he noticed Lobov’s fancy car parked right in front of a garage that had warnings not to park in front of it plastered on its wood. Levi’s heart sank to his knees and two coins grinded against each other between his thumb and his index finger. He could only hope Isabel and Farlan weren’t home yet.

The trouble Levi imagined in his head probably meant nothing compared to what would actually happen if Lobov found out there was another person living in their flat. One person extra who did not pay him. Who lived without him knowing anything about it. If there was anything Nicholas Lobov detested, it was secrets that were kept right under his noise. And Levi perfectly well knew it. The dark haired man searched for his key and it took him a few tries before he could insert it in the lock, his hands shivering because of the cold rain pouring down on him. 

While he walked up the stairs, Levi reached for his phone and read Farlan's text that said he would be heading back in five minutes. Levi exhaled, relieved that there was no reason to worry about discovery.


End file.
